Well, I had wanted Kansas to win the basketball tournament, but Kentucky was just too good. It was a fun game, but not as good as the semi-final games which seemed much harder fought, and certainly had been right down to the buzzer. It was still fun to watch, though, while fighting with my poetry.

The LOTRO Community assignment for this month is the 'Beauty of Arda' and should be poetry. I wrote three poems yesterday, and although things are starting to get there, it's much more of a fight than I usually have. I have written poems since I was a kid, and I'm comfortable with metered rhyme. But this time I'm trying free verse, and my theme just isn't allowing me to really peer into the 'beauty' part of Arda. So it comes down to a question - do I go with my muse? or do I go with the theme? So far my muse is winning. It's a good thing this isn't due for a while.

So one of the MegaMillions winners is in Maryland, supposedly this single mother of seven who works at McDonald's. So far so good...but...her fellow workers are claiming that the ticket was part of the store pool, not just hers, and now she can't seem to find the ticket. Hmmmm. What a bunch of bullcrap. I tell you one thing. If I have the winning ticket for a jackpot like this, I lock that ticket up quickly! Duh! I don't think she has it at all, but if she does, she'd better split that money with her co-workers. Shame on her!

The thing that's getting to me here is that I usually like some unifying feature in my poetry. I have theme and basic structure of the lines, but the meter is still off and I'm not doing any rhyme. I really prefer to have a metered and rhyming piece. So I'm a bit frustrated. But I have time on this one, if I can find quiet time to work on it. I can write stories during noise and interruptions, but poetry requires solitude and quiet.

Thanks once more for all of your help when I was writing about Caesar's assassination. I am now working on the fall of Rome, but that's a bit easier. I don't like the angle I decided on, so I'm wiping a few thousand words and starting over again *sigh*.

Oh thanks so much! I loved working on the Maglor in History card, but the historian in me wouldn't let the prompts go without serious research into each period of history, so they were very labor intensive also. Your help on Caesar was invaluable.

The shorter Rome Falls story that I posted yesterday night was the result of writing and throwing out five different and longer versions. Sometimes the muse has no heart :-)

And I loved that the refugees saw your long pipe as a bazooka. I have the most unusual and wonderful friends through LJ :-) Enjoy your holiday.

The muse never has any heart - kill your darlings, after all... But a short, pointed piece can be more effective than any amount of words, and I think that one was effective. Again - congratulations on your BtME output! It really has been inspiring to watch.

Verdad? I've always thought that some of the Spanish-language poetry I've heard is some of the most beautiful ever because the language is so exceptionally stunning. No awe necessary. If I can't work this out the way I want, most definitely no awe - LOL.